Clergyman's

A surface free energy function is defined to be crystalline if its Wulff shape is a polyhedron. All the questions that one considers for the area functional, where the surface free energy per unit area is 1 for all normal directions, can be considered for crystalline surface free energies. Such questions are interesting for both mathematical and physical reasons. Methods from the geometric calculus of variations are useful for studying a number of such questions; a survey of some of the results is given.
- Jean Taylor

Surface tension is commonly thought of as a fluid phenomenon; the mere mention of the term brings to mind bugs skimming over water, liquids rising or falling in capillary tubes—and soap films and soap bubbles. But there is in fact a notion of surface tension for the interface between any two substances, or even between one substance and a vacuum. This surface energy arises from the fact that atoms of a given substance have a different environment at the interface between that substance and another than those in the bulk of the substance.
- Jean Taylor

Item: Retirement party for Joanne Elliott. One of my colleagues reminisced about seeing Joanne as an attractive young woman in the common room at Princeton surrounded by young men eager to be near her. The comment made me very uncomfortable, since it placed emphasis on her attractiveness in a setting where conversations are often mathematical. If only the men had been clustered around her because they were eager to hear her theorems and conjectures! But at least as the story was related, that was not the case.
- Jean Taylor

The subject of motion by crystalline curvature is of interest for three quite distinct reasons. One is that some physical surface energies and physical models of crystal growth simply do give rise to such motion. Another is its use as a way to approximate motion of curves by curvature, both for computation and possibly for proving theorems. The third is that this motion simply is interesting and beautiful in its own right, having results that sometimes parallel those for ordinary curvature and sometimes are strikingly different.
- Jean Taylor